Blue Again
by Xzeihoranth
Summary: The Doctor finds Elizabeth before she can make her last and greatest mistake.
1. Blue Again

"Is this seat taken?" The tall young man plops down (there really is no other word for the way he bounces a little in the cushion as he sits) next to her.

"You again." She doesn't know why she's angry to see him. "What do you want?"

"I told you once." he says as he pops her untouched olive into his mouth.

"No you didn't." she replies.

"Didn't I?" He chews the olive thoughtfully and pokes around his teeth for a bit with the toothpick. "Oh, that's right; I was GOING to tell you." He makes a face. "All this quantum heebyjeebywhatsit's confusing even for me."

"You're lying."

"Am I?" He drops the toothpick down onto the table. "All right then. What am I REALLY thinking?"

"You're trying to butter me up so that I'll..._reveal_ myself to you."

He squints his eyes and makes another face. "Not quite the way I'd have put it, but I suppose it'll do." He smiles briefly, then it fades. "I want to stop you." She laughs harshly. "Did I say something funny?" he asks.

"No." she says as she struggles to end the laugh. "It's been a while since someone said that to me."

"I can tell." His tone is pleasant if melancholy, but for a moment she thinks he can. When he speaks again, she _knows_ he can. "I've been following you for a long time." He leans in unconsciously. "I've seen the things you've seen. I've seen the things you've done. And I am here to tell you: you're making a big mistake."

"A mistake?" She laughs again, and this time it hurts. "My misTAKE was smothering my father." A couple people look over. "It didn't solve anything."

"And neither will this." He puts his hand over her right one. "The mistake you made wasn't killing your father. It's doing it again."

Long ago she said she would never cry. Now here she is, crying on New Year's Eve with a man she hardly knows, at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. There's a woman singing on the radio. "I'm alone again, alone again." she says. "I'm out around on my own again, cause my mocking bird has flown again. And I'm alone again."

"It isn't fair." she says with tears dripping down her face.

"No." he agrees. "No it isn't. But he's not the man you knew. He's not either of them; he's...something else."

"Blood is blood." she tries to tell herself.

"Blood doesn't make you who you are. _You_ do."

"At least THAT we can agree on." she says. "My blood is killing me."

"Ah, you never know." He lets go of her hand and leans back. "City at the bottom of the ocean? Like Mister Ryan said, _that's_ a miracle. Might not be the only one." he adds.

He's trying to tell her something. She knows he is, but she can't figure out what. "What should I do?" she asks him.

"Best thing you can do." he advises her. "Keep an open mind. It's easier said than done, believe me-" He smiles and laughs, and it looks as though it hurts him too. "-I know." He's staring off into space, seeing things that even she hasn't dared to see.

"Why do you care?" she asks. It's a dumb question, but it's made slightly less dumb by the follow-up. "Why aren't you trying to erase me or something?" She stammers like she's that little girl in Columbia again.

"What makes you think I haven't tried?" he says in response. Then, seeing that she still doesn't understand, he attempts to explain. "Your...existence is a fixed point in time. The city you were raised in might not technically exist in this universe any more, but because YOU do, part of it still does."

To others, it might not make sense. To Elizabeth, it does. "A paradox." she muses. "You must have had more than your fair share of those."

"Who said it was fair?" the man jokes. She purses her lips, which only makes him smile more. "Yeah, I've-I've dabbled as it were..."

"Do they ever...go away?"

He shrugs and makes _another_ face. "Sometimes. Sometimes the universe just heals up all around them. We'll have to wait and see with you."

They're silent. The music has changed. Rapture's second anthem, though no one but the two of them knows it.

"How long has it been?" Elizabeth asks him.

The Doctor lets out the air in his lungs with an explosive sigh of unsuredness. "Don't have the faintest idea." he says. It's his turn to purse his lips now. "Wait a minute." He remembers. "It was just after Donna. You still had your hair cut short." He makes a gesture with his hands, just below his ears.

"You still haven't brought her back." she says. She would have liked Donna...

"It _might_ work, MIGHT work." he tells her firmly. "I don't think she'd forgive me." he admits a moment later.

"You'd know her better than I would." she says. "But if you ever need a brain to pick, you know where you can find mine." she jokes.

He grimaces. "Don't say that. Not here."

"Why not?" She tries to interpret the look on his face. "'Future stuff'?" she guesses.

Reluctantly he nods. "Not any more, but... I shouldn't have said that." he says. "It's realllllllly not pleasant."

"I guess I'll never know." she says, trying to be flippant.

He reads her like a book. "Don't even THINK about it." he warns her, suddenly serious again. "I'm not kidding. It'd drive you MAD."

Now it's her turn to read him. "You saw it, didn't you." His gaze is stony. "How long?"

"I came right here." He's angry, though not with her. "There are some places logic doesn't work like it does here." He's breathing faster, almost baring his teeth. "And that's all I'm going to say about it."

"All right." she says. She at least has regained her composure. "I suppose it was nice meeting you again." She starts to walk away, to find a quiet alley to disappear in.

He calls her name. "Elizabeth." She turns. He's on his feet, looking as old as he must feel sometimes. "Go to him." he says. "Learn about your dad. I think..." He looks away for some reason. "I think it's what he would have wanted."

She nods and heads off toward Market Street.

He'll come back and visit her later. Much later. He'll watch from the TARDIS as their journey unfolds and takes a different path, a better path. He will smile throughout it all, because he knows the way it should never have to be.

And thanks to him, thanks to the Doctor, it never will be again.


	2. Blue Before

_Water. Why did it always come back to water?_

Those were the first thoughts that came into Elizabeth's mind. She could hear water running in the background, though something about the sound seemed off. She stirred as her senses began returning to her. All of them.

"Take it easy." a male voice said. "You've been unconscious for a while."

"Wha-" she tried to say.

"3 days. 3 Helicon days, so...probably about five."

Elizabeth opened her eyes and found herself staring at a smooth greyish-blue ceiling quite unlike any ceiling she'd ever seen before. On her left was a fountain whose water flowed up instead of down. On her right...

She shut her eyes again tightly. "Yup." the voice said again, the voice that came from the right. "Took me a while to get used to that."

Even blind, her other senses are still at work. "You're the Doctor." she said. "You once said you were 'the definite article.' You've lived for nine...nine hundred..."

"Shhh." the Doctor said. "I can never get it right either." He put a hand upon her forehead and the memories of the other hers receded. She's just her again, for a time. "Do you know where you are?"

"I did, before... You said Helicon-"

"Helicon Prime." he said and she was finally able to relax. "Luxury resort, far side of the universe from where you were brought up. I brought you here in my TARDIS. Found you out in deep space, cold as ice and still breathing. She wasn't particularly happy to have you onboard." There was a smile in his voice just then. He took his hand away. "How'd you manage that?"

"That? Oh, that was nothing. I'm just _special_." she said bitterly.

"I know you are." From the infinitesimal creak, she supposed the Doctor had leaned forward. "Do you want to know how I know that?" Elizabeth was silent. "Because the first time I saw you, I could see every which way your story could have unfolded. And it hurt. I expect that's why the TARDIS doesn't like you. She hates it when people are even half as complicated as I am."

"If you know who I am, then why did you even bother asking?" she asked him.

"I wanted to hear it from your point of view."

"Really? I daresay you're about to get more than you bargained for."

"Go on." He leaned back again.

"I am what I thought I was back in Finkton. A freak. A...monster. The only reason I exist at all is because my father is twice the fool he ever thought he was. Fool enough to sell me, and fool enough to want to BUY me." Her voice was tight. Her hands were clenched even tighter to avoid the tears that she'd promised herself she would never spill. After a while, she opened her eyes and looked around the room. Elegant chairs made out of a material she couldn't hope to identify bobbed calmly up and down on thin air. From where she sat, she could just make out the Doctor's shoes out of the corner of her eye. She turned away. "Is that what you wanted to hear?" she asked.

"Not...really..." the Doctor admitted. "I was hoping for a bit more 'que sera sera' sort of approach."

"Have you forgotten you turned that part of me off?" Elizabeth turned halfway to him then stopped. "Is it going to come back?"

"I'm afraid so. Mind like yours can't just be turned off. It's only a matter of time until it finds a way to turn itself back on."

"Then, why did you-"

"Thought you deserve a break." the Doctor said. "It's why I brought you here. Helicon Prime is one of the finest luxury resorts in all of history. Sympathetic gravity-" Elizabeth looked at the reverse fountain on her left. "-and the beds, and, oh, just the _atmosphere_-"

"I thought the reason you came here was because it was the furthest place in the universe from Donna Noble." Even with her back to him, she could tell she struck a nerve.

"How did you do that?" he asked her.

"Whatever you did earlier has worn off." she said, gesturing to her head. "Though I would have thought hearing something from your younger days would have startled you more." Elizabeth stood up. She was grateful she was still wearing her dress from Columbia. "I shouldn't stay here. There are things I have to see to-"

"Nothing that can't wait." the Doctor offered. "Look, I know what it must be like: the whole of history's opened up to you. You can see everything that ever was, everything that ever will be, and suddenly there just isn't enough _time_ for you to put everything right. But not everything you see needs your help. And sometimes, very very very rarely, they're better off this way." Elizabeth said nothing. "Come on..." Suddenly he was by her side. "I'll stay if you will." He offered her his arm, and when she took it, suddenly it didn't hurt to look directly at him any more.

* * *

><p>They stayed for another month (her time), talking and asking questions and trying to relax. Sometimes they laughed. Sometimes they wanted to cry but never did. When she was gone, the Doctor left as well. He took a look back at her life through the TARDIS, compelled for reasons he didn't understand to fight through the time winds and the paradoxes to see how this Elizabeth had come to be, a process which ultimately left him with more questions than answers. Why were parallel dimensions so much easier to access for her, when he had had to burn up a star just to say goodbye?<p>

He thought about asking her directly, but the TARDIS seemed to have other ideas. It made him watch from a distance as Elizabeth inadvertently brought about her own death (in a manner of speaking) by trying to prevent her creation. It kept him _seconds_ behind her as she attempted to come to terms with her mistake. And finally, it showed the Doctor a darker path, locking both the internal and external doors to prevent him from directly interfering. He raged at the console, and at the man they called Atlas, and it was only when he was safely in the Vortex again that he was able to rejoin her, and help her avoid that path.

For the TARDIS could see everything. More than he ever could. More than she ever could. It knew when and where and how the circle could be broken, and all it wanted was to help him understand. As usual, it got what it wanted.


End file.
